Sundar Modernizes Textile Sourcing For Fashion Industry

Sundar, a global mobile search engine startup for sourcing materials and suppliers founded by banker-turned-entrepreneur Jag Gill, is part of a growing community leveraging technology to modernize business-to-business responsibilities within the international fashion industry. Sundar’s mission is to streamline the antiquated pen-to-paper materials purchasing process for designers and manufacturers by bringing it into the 21st century. This revolutionary company has developed digital tools involving curated, real-time data on its platform to create commerce opportunities between qualified vendors and buyers, saving them time, money, and the hassle of traveling to trade fairs.

Founded in 2014, Sundar was first incubated at TechStars Boston, and before that at MIT. The team has won industry accolades, including awards from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), Condé Nast, and Decoded Fashion. Sundar is currently participating in New York Fashion Tech Lab 2015, a collaboration between the Partnership Fund for New York, Springboard Enterprises, and leading U.S. apparel & accessory brands and retailers.

Prior to launching Sundar, MIT Sloan School of Management-grad Gill was a banker and advisor for several years to top business owners and companies in India. She was Vice President at Deutsche Bank’s Private Wealth Management Division and Associate Director at USB’s Wealth Management Global South Asia.

Sundar Founder & CEO shares more:

Kristina Moore: Tell us how Sundar works.

Jag Gill: Sundar is a collaborative platform that connects creative professionals with quality materials and qualified vendors globally. We are starting with fashion, a trillion dollar global industry whose supply chain is "pen-and-paper", word-of-mouth, opaque and offline.

On one side of the platform, for designers, it’s a discovery and inspiration platform to source materials for new collections and suppliers with specialist skills; on the other side, previously offline & local, producers and manufacturers get exposure and visibility to global customers.

Our mission is to streamline the discovery and sourcing process by providing sophisticated search, curation and data-driven insights on what to purchase, produce and stock, to buyers and sellers 24/7.

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Gill: We want to empower the creators of fashion to discover and source materials and vendors from all corners of the world – to create apparel that has a story, whether it is around finding innovative materials, social impact or transparent supply chains. Professional women see fashion less and less as a commodity, and more as a way to be unique, feel their best, and as a platform to manifest "consciousness" and ethical choices. That’s why brands like Everlane, Maiyet, Zady are all flourishing. Of course, price and quality are critical – and professional women covet long-lasting products at fair prices – fair for consumers and fair for the workers that create them.

Moore: Who are your competitors in the industry?

Gill: This industry lives in the offline world. Designers go to trade-fairs, agents and showrooms to source new vendors and find new materials to work with, which is expensive and inefficient. The business of fashion has been slow to adopt technology. Online listing sites like alibaba.com are Asia-focused, and don’t do a good job at curating quality supplier sources. Professionals in design, sourcing and production at fashion brands and retailers have a tough time as they cannot travel frequently given finance and budget cuts; and yet they need to design and create ten to fifteen new and fresh collections a year, in very short production cycles.

Moore: What compelled you to switch your career from finance to fashion and launch Sundar?

Gill: During my twenties, generally a time of professional and personal discovery, I came to the realization that I am Right-Brain Left-Brain integrated and equal. I enjoyed the quantitative aspects of finance, the analytical rigor of markets and economics; but I was also very design-driven, which was an important part of my personal journey and a rich cultural heritage of India’s aesthetic; during every working trip to India, I would become more and more captivated by it’s fashion and creative classes (my social circle comprised of designers, curators, writers, social entrepreneurs). My Left Brain identified the massive trillion dollar market opportunity; My Right Brain reveled in the beauty of building a digital and global creative ecosystem which didn’t exist before. Sundar is the fusing of these two life stories through entrepreneurship.

Moore: It is my understanding that Sundar is concerned about social responsibility in the fashion industry. Can you explain this further?

Gill: We have several important mandates at Sundar – to innovate an antiquated industry, to bring transparency to opaque processes and to build global relationships across the fashion industry. Sundar is a platform where micro-producers doing impact work, as well as larger manufacturers, can connect with designers. For example, Shanley Knox is a social entrepreneur working to protect bovine biodiversity in Uganda. Her manufacturing collective, Olivia Knox, is providing luxury designers with access to after market horn through an industry cluster that is shifting horn manufacturing toward smarter production, ethical labor practices and direct sourcing from ranchers. Through Sundar, she has connected with luxury brands who are sampling her materials for their next collections.

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